1 post tagged “research”

I'm working on this story for the Apex anthology and I'll need to out my monster: he's a variation on chiang-shih, which is a Chinese vampire.

So Mari e-mails today & says:

I need everyone to turn in a plot synopsis by September 15th. This is just to make sure we don't have thirteen "creature from the bottom of an abandoned mine devours Harlan County" stories.

So I wrote back and said:

Well, I have the creature and the abandoned mine but it doesn't devour anything. Should I change it? ;)

Apparently I have dibs on a Chinese vampire hanging out in an eastern Kentucky mine. But you know, by definition we are naturally going to gravitate to the mines so I don't know what they expect. And sci-fi set in rural Kentucky? Short of dropping in aliens, I don't know what people are going to do on that front (and apparently there is an "alien in a mine" story already).

In any case, I Googled "chiang shih" to see what turned up and I found out that the head of the mechanical engineering department at my alma mater is named Chiang Shih. Beware!